I would be
interested in looking at magazines for women as my artefact. Last summer I
stayed at a cottage with my family, and I ran out of reading material. My
cousin had brought a magazine (Cosmopolitan) and gave it to me to read. I was
surprised by how much of the magazine was dedicated to explaining to women all
the things that were wrong with them (in their appearance, their personality,
their work, their sex lives, and their relationships) and how they could fix
these things (by purchasing certain things such as cosmetics, or by taking the
advice of the columnists in the magazine). I’m honestly not certain what I
would hope to learn from it, but I would like to look at the methods that they
use to persuade women that they are not good enough. Even if my research was
only to help people to think critically about these magazines I would consider
it to be worth the work.
I don't think it's shocking if I say that there are discrepancies in the expectations that society constructs for women versus men. Sexism is still alive and well, unfortunately, and present in our daily lives. I was having a conversation this evening with a male friend about the different comments that men and women receive from peers, specifically in the workplace. Not surprisingly, women are subject to comments on almost every aspect of their appearance - their hair, their make up, their clothes, their shoes, etc. Whereas men simply aren't subject to such thorough commentary. I think this plays into the culture that's perpetuated by artifacts such as Cosmo magazine. Critical thinking is so important. Another potentially interesting aspect of your proposed study may be to look at who buys and reads such artifacts - do they affect all women the same way?
ReplyDeleteI would guess that they are intended to affect all women in the same way, but it probably has varying degrees of success. It would be hard for it to not affect people given that it is all based on societal standards of beauty.
DeleteEarlier today I was thinking about how women are meant to categorize themselves in so many ways - what type of skin they have, what type of hair they have, what type of body shape... but you rarely (if ever) see these things for men - and yet we both have skin and hair, and therefore should also have different types. Instead you have about 50 different types of shampoo for women for different hair types, and then you see other shampoo brands that simply have things like "shampoo for men's hair".
A great documentary that is related to this discussion is called Miss Representation. I believe it's on Netflix! The medium truly is the message!!
ReplyDeleteInteresting! I actually looked up magazine covers for different magazines like, Shape, GQ and Men's Health to see what I can find after reading your post and I must say that I'm seeing less commentary on those targetting men, even though they still exist, like "How to make her go wow in the bedroom" or "How to lose that dad-bod". I'm also seeing more women on the cover of men's magazines than men on the cover's of women's magazines which is quite interesting.
ReplyDeleteHowever, at the same time I cannot help but wonder if this is just a reflection of what the magazine's audience wants and expects. I would think that magazine publishers would get focus group surveys done to find out what their target audience expects to read beforehand. Of course, I'm not saying that it is a good phenomenon in the society, and I would definitely hate if I was constantly bombarded with commentary that I don't appreciate, but I also cannot help but recognize that these magazines write what they do because there is a market for them. I imagine that their narratives would change when they realize that the demand for those content decreases.